Enda O’Coineen’s ‘Kilcullen Team Ireland’ Vendee Globe boat at the NYC this Saturday

NYC overseas’ Member Enda O’Coineen will moor his IMOCA 60 ‘Kilcullen Team Ireland’ on the NYC pontoons on Saturday 3rd September around high water (1130 to 1330).
Enda is entering this impressive racing machine (20% faster downwind than a Volvo Ocean 65′) in what the public has now nicknamed ‘The Everest of the Seas’, the Vendee Globe Race!
This is the first time ever that an Irish Skipper has entered the race.
This is a unique opportunity for NYC Members to come down and see a Vendee Globe boat in the flesh as close as can be!
For Enda, being at the start of a Vendee Globe is no mean challenge in itself and is the culmination of a lot of work including 16,000 ocean miles and nearly 50 days at sea last year…
THE CONCEPT OF THE VENDÉE GLOBE IS SIMPLE AND EASY TO UNDERSTAND: YOU HAVE TO SAIL AROUND THE WORLD ALONE WITHOUT STOPPING AND WITHOUT ASSISTANCE. THESE THREE PARAMETERS ARE THE D.N.A. OF THE RACE.
The NYC will be following Enda’s progress with immense interest and we would like to wish him, most of all a safe journey, and hopefully a full round trip!!!
About the Race
The Vendée Globe is still the only non-stop solo round the world race without assistance. The event was created in the spirit of the Golden Globe, which was in 1968 the first non-stop solo round the world race via the three capes (Good Hope, Leeuwin and the Horn). Out of the nine pioneers, who set sail in 1968, only one made it back to Falmouth on 6th April 1969 after 313 days at sea, the British sailor, Robin Knox-Johnston. Sir Robin Knox-Johnston thus became the first sailor to sail alone around the world without stopping…
Twenty years later, the French sailor Philippe Jeantot, following on from his two wins in the BOC Challenge (the solo round the world race with stopovers), came up with the idea of a new solo round the world race, but this time a non-stop race. The Globe Challenge was born, and a few editions later this became the Vendée Globe. On 26th November 1989, thirteen sailors set off in this first edition, which would last more than three months. Only seven made it back to les Sables d’Olonne.
Below: the route of the Vendee Globe (click to enlarge)

Since then, the first seven have enabled 138 sailors to line up at the start of the Vendée Globe, while only 71 have managed to cross the finishing line. This figure alone expresses the huge difficulty of this global event, where sailors face icy cold conditions, mountainous waves and leaden skies in the Southern Ocean. The Vendée Globe is above all a voyage to the ends of the sea and deep down into the sailor’s soul. It has been won by some of the greatest names in sailing: Titouan Lamazou, Alain Gautier, Christophe Auguin, Vincent Riou and François Gabart. Only one sailor has won it twice: Michel Desjoyeaux, in 2001 and 2009. The race record is held by François Gabart with a barely believable time of 78 days!!!!
The eighth Vendée Globe will set sail from les Sables d’Olonne on Sunday 6th November 2016.
About Enda
Enda O’Coineen has had a successful business career, creating the first business networks in the former Eastern bloc countries just after the Berlin Wall came down. But he is also one of the creators of Ireland’s famous sailing magazine, Afloat. In his youth, he crossed the Atlantic on an inflatable boat, just to prove to his boss – who manufactured what we now refer to as RIBs – that it could be done. Among a host of other facets to this unusual character, we can add that Enda O’Coineen was the founder of the Atlantic Youth Trust, an educational programme taking hundreds of youngsters each year on board classic yachts.
In 2015, Enda O’Coineen amazed everyone, when he made it to the podium of the St Barth-Port La Forêt transatlantic race on an IMOCA (he finished third). It is clear that the Irishman is an excellent sailor and is far from being unknown in the world of ocean racing. In particular, he has sailed on one-design boats and on Maxis. He was in fact behind the Irish project in the crewed race around the world, the Whitbread, in 1987. He was also one of the leading lights behind the Green Dragon project in the Volvo Ocean Race, two decades later. He also fought hard for Galway, his home town in Connacht, to host the finish of the Volvo Ocean Race. In this Vendée Globe, he would like firstly to complete the round the world voyage. He has what it takes to do just that aboard a very good boat.
About ‘Kilcullen Team Ireland’
An Owen Clarke design, Kilcullen Team Ireland is none other than the former Gamesa aboard which Mike Golding took part in two Vendée Globe races, with very different outcomes. In 2008, the boat was dismasted off Australia. Restored, she was to finish third in the double-handed transatlantic race in 2009. She was modernised and updated and lightened in 2011, returning to a classic rig. In spite of dismasting again just after her launch in May 2012, Mike Golding managed to complete his preparation and finished in sixth place in the 2012-2013 Vendée Globe after 88 days and 6 hours. A very good boat that was completely refitted by Mer Agitée in Port-La-Forêt.

The boat’s previous names: Ecover 3 / Président / Gamesa

Designer: Owen Clarke Design LLP / Clay Oliver

Chantier : Hakes Marine

Launch Date: 01 August 2007

Length: 18.28 m

Beam: 5,80m

Draught: 4.50 m

Displacement (weight): 8 t

Number of drifts: 2

Mast height: 27.30 m

Keel blade: Carbone

Upwind sail area: 300 m²

Downwind sail area: 580

Click on the picture below to enlarge

even being at the start of a Vendee Globe, which is no mean challenge in itself!

I, and hopefully many with me, will be following your progress with immense interest and I would like to wish you most of all a safe journey and hopefully a full round trip!!!